hmm

[ewt]

My screen (okay, not mine, I borrowed it two years ago from someone who almost definitely does not want it back) seems to be doing a weird thing every now and again where the picture wiggles a bit.

I fear it is on its last legs. I fear it is in the final throes of a pitiful death. Grah. I may have to purchase a new one... this is not the end of the world as I had been planning to do so anyway, probably before uni, but a screen was one of the last things I was going to get, because a) couldn't decide whether to just get laptop instead, and b) price might actually go down/become more reasonable on screens, and c) I really want a backpack case for my horn, first, as I'll use that more and it hurts me more not having it.

Of course it won't do this weird flickery juddery thing long enough for me to show anyone ELSE.

Grah.

Anyone know where I can get a cheap flatscreen? It's really not worth me buying a CRT at this point in time. Is it? I don't necessarily need something huge - this is only a 14" after all, so anything will be an improvement - but desk space, reduced power consumption, easy moving, etc are all issues, either now or later.

Grah and Grah. Grah and Bother.

Help and Grah.

To buy a screen or to buy a laptop? Will this thing even hold out until shevek gets back and I can ask him for advice?

Yes, I've checked the cable is plugged in right.

Having a screen and box as opposed to a laptop is good in terms of my posture and being able to position the keyboard and screen independently of one another. However, having a laptop might be extremely useful for classes and so on. If I'm living in halls and shevek is living in a flat somewhere it would be good to be able to bring my work with me when I go to visit him, even if it is relatively close to home in comparison to my current trek to Bath every time I visit him. I suppose I could get a dongle to use my keyboard with the laptop, thereby relieving postural difficulties.

Having no screen for any amount of time is not something I particularly want to risk. Life Without Teh Interweb would just be too scary to face!

I wonder if any of the old screens from Yakar are available, as a stopgap measure...

In other news I am trying to book busking this morning and have been getting a busy tone for an hour. What does ringback do if loads of people use it on the same number? Does it just fall over?

Comments

[reddragdiva]

Old 15" monitors should not be that hard to source ... everyone wants a 17" or a flatscreen these days.

(Perhaps we can scout around for another old Sun monitor. 21", and it doubles as a room heater!)

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

There are a number of monitors littering our floor. I'll ask Sean if he has a spare one that works for you, if you want.

[yady.livejournal.com]

You can usually connect a keyboard and mouse directly to a laptop, and a pile of books or a special standard (though I don't know if those ara available at a sane price outside my university, or even what they cost here) will then pretty much solve the posture problems a laptop might bring. I'd say, try to get a spare screen from someone (apparently you have some possibilities already) and seriously consider getting a laptop at some point.

*hugs*

[rudysue.livejournal.com]

i used to have a laptop that i just absolutely loved...but it was the most unreliable piece of crap! i lost a screw that held the battery in place and it would fall out at the worst times... it could hardly handle anything i wanted to do (which at the time was not much at all) and so it would lock up on me once an hour or so... and the screen started going out almost as soon as i got the darn thing. I liked having it because i was in school at the time, and it was great to be able to take it with me when i up and left for weekends and such...but it just sorta died on me after a year or so.

now, i would rather have a laptop only as a secondary computer so that it won't have to handle quite so much of a load.
just my two cents. :-)

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your input:)

What brand was your laptop? I'll try to avoid it if I know they are dodgy.

shevek has been using his laptop quite hard for the last 3 years - taking it to and from uni every day, keeping it on or in suspend mode for most of the time, and so on. He had some problems with the battery (I think it was the battery?) once but it was still under warranty and IBM sorted it out pretty quickly. He's doing a PhD in computing, so he does use it fairly heavily. It isn't his only machine but then he has an awful lot of machines.

If I do get a laptop I will be looking carefully getting him to look carefully for a machine that is right for my needs and likely to be reasonably reliable.

I also have an insane number of computergeek friends, not through my own geekery (mine is music geekery, not computer geekery) so much as by proxy, so if I needed a bare-bones desktop machine sorted out quickly it probably wouldn't be that hard to do just from all the spare bits people have. I'll keep my current desktop machine for a while - for teh soundcard, if nothing else - but might have it at shevek's place during first year when I'm living in halls and pressed for space.

It's so hard to know what I'll have space for and what I'll need, there are a lot of unknowns (room size, proximity of halls to the university, proximity of halls to wherever my boyfriend ends up, facilities vs. demand for computer stuff at the uni...) and I don't want to spend money unnecessarily.

If I get a second-hand laptop (which is likely - buying a new one would be rather insane atm), the biggest problem is likely to be battery life - after a while the batteries just don't last so long. To an extent, I'm not too worried about that because I don't see myself using a laptop for long periods where I can't access mains power, it's just the portability dwelling-to-dwelling which may be an issue. Also I may be able to get replacement batteries.

[rudysue.livejournal.com]

oops, i didn't mean to delete that comment! sorry :-/

it was an old Gateway Notebook and i got it in like '98. i'm VERY sure there are much better brands now. (never a gateway again for me, they should be crowned King of the Goobers...or something)

i was alway weary of using public computers b/c they log just about everyhting now (including passwords and such) in the labs around here.

i had a bunch of friends who had computers set up in the strangest/smallest places, and it actually worked pretty well. but yeah, laptops are sooooooo much more convenient. it's a toss up, i guess/

good luck getting one all sorted out for you. looks like you've got pretty much everything covered! my boyfriend is a computer guru, too, and i wonder sometimes if he is really just a machine, himself! they (boys and computers) can be such a pain sometimes! :)

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of monitors lying around doing nothing if you need one.

With regards to laptop a friend of mine saw a decent enough, new Sony vaio for £500ish (its a 1ghz and stuff. I can't remember the spec, but I can find out. It was fairly amazing for the money, whatever it was. I wish I could remember where it was though :|)

Ringback: if it gets overused or it can't handle an line type you get "Sorry ringback is not available for this call" or something similar.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I probably wouldn't get a vaio, they have an annoying tendency not to be compatible with anything not made by Sony. You have to run special Sony-tweaked versions of operating systems and everything.

They are incredibly small and light and sexy-looking though.

I'm probably looking to spend about £250, although this may be flexible.

Ringback didn't ring back. Ever. I did eventually get through (using a different phone than I used for the ringback).

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

Hm, I know someone who has a Vaio. Sadly I've only ever seen it run linux so I can't comment on what it does under windows.

Oh the Vaio that I was talking about is a 1Ghz, 256mb ram, 20gb HDD, DVD ROM. I can prolly find out other details (model number, CPU type, graphics hardware, chipset, LAN/modem, no of usb/cardbus, blah blah if anyone wants me to). It apparently costs £500 (inc VAT) from Staples, or so I'm told, should anyone be interested.

£250 may just about get you something reasonable in the 2nd hand notebook market, though dodgyness can be hard to avoid. On the other hand you can get a new TFT without any trouble whatsoever for that kind of money (He says looking at a pricelist with a 15in LG TFT (L1510S for the geeks that like to know these things) for £210.32 inc VAT as an example).

[sourcebook.livejournal.com]

I have a Vaio - it's been back to Sony for repairs twice in the last six months, thankfully still within the warranty period. Battery life is pathetic on the model I got. It ended up not having enough juice to last a one-hour train journey to work.